Marin County's organic egg business posts robust growth

The free-range organic egg business is booming at RedHill Farms on the Marin County border.

Rancher Don Gilardi tends 3,500 Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, about 1,500 more birds than roamed his 80-acre, fourth-generation family farm a year ago.

"Business is good," the 43-year-old Gilardi said, noting his hens produce about 16,000 eggs a week, or about a third of the 45,000 eggs from a dozen farms that have joined under the RedHill Farms brand.

"The demand for organic, pasture-raised chicken eggs is increasing," Gilardi said, adding his farm-fresh product is available at retail outlets across the Bay Area.

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Birds that feast on pasture bugs, worms, grass and organic grain produce "unbelievably good" eggs, he said. "These birds have access to the outdoors 24/7," he said. "We're all about providing the best animal welfare possible, along with the best eggs possible."

Mobile coops that include roosting and nesting areas are rolled into a pasture that is then circled with portable mesh fencing. The flock forages and fertilizes before the coop is moved elsewhere.

Gilardi's operation is an example of a robust organic egg industry in Marin. Overall, farmers reported expanding their flocks 60 percent last year, making the county home for 258,000 chickens, according to Agricultural Commissioner Stacy K. Carlsen.

Thanks to new flocks and better data from a new state registration program, the value of Marin's poultry industry soared from $6.5 million in 2012 to $12.4 million last year, Carlsen said.

"There's nothing like free-range eggs," he said.

With better data from the state making this year's numbers more accurate than ever, Carlsen's annual livestock and agricultural report puts the gross value of all agricultural production at $84.3 million in 2013, up 4.9 percent from $80.4 million the year before. Production includes livestock products, $33.4 million; livestock, $29.7 million; field and hay crops, $9.9 million; fruit, grape and vegetable crops, $5.3 million; aquaculture, $5.5 million, and nursery crops, $400,000.

"Milk is the longstanding, premier commodity for Marin," Carlsen said, adding milk was valued at $33.4 million last year, down $705,000 from the year before due to a dip in production.

But as far as chickens, "poultry values increased for 2013," Carlsen noted, with the bird count increasing by 96,656, boosting the product production value 89 percent, or about $5.8 million more than the year before.

But back at RedHill Farms, nobody is counting on making an easy buck in the bird business.